


Sunsquall

by lightscreener



Category: Warhammer - All Media Types, Warhammer 40.000
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-11
Updated: 2017-12-11
Packaged: 2019-02-13 13:14:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12984819
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lightscreener/pseuds/lightscreener
Summary: An investigation is conducted, in the wake of the Primarch II's death.





	Sunsquall

**Author's Note:**

> As usual, fiction based on an RP.

_There's been an accident._

Dorth Galliard followed the Great Captain, Belphegor, and the Great Captain's second, Raum, down the cavernous halls of the _Resilient_. They were old friends, and officers besides, and with the Detail dissolved, he was not their peer, so he made the passage a few steps behind them.

_Can you come right away? Inform the Lord Primarchs._

"Are you clean?" Raum asked, casually.

"Clean enough," Belphegor replied.

_It's called a sunsquall, Dorth. It's a pretty name for a terrible thing._

Belphegor stopped in front of the door to the morgue and touched the claw of his gauntlet to the panel beside it. Mechanisms within shrieked and ground against each other and there was a hiss of steam as the door irised open. Mist flowed out into the darkened hallway, pooling around the three Astartes. It was close to freezing inside, but Dorth, with his hearts already broken, was numb enough that he hardly noticed it.

The ships of the Death Guard Warfleet were not elaborate affairs. Among their Legion, function took precedence over form, and the gloom of exposed machinery, twisted bundles of cabling, and grey-black panelling seemed to reflect Dorth’s somber mood back at him. 

_No one could have predicted this._

"Dorth," said Belphegor, pausing at the threshold of the door, turning to face him. 

The Great Captain was taller than he was, and although Dorth knew him to be in perfect health, there was an aura of sickness that seemed to cling to the elder Astartes. Belphegor’s skin was white-grey, and his white hair was shoulder-length, held behind his head in a neat tie with a black pin. The barest nod to the fashion of the time. Belphegor's eyes were striking, a mossy shade of jade-green that, from certain angles, seemed to glow. 

Typical of the Death Guard officer cadre, really. Dorth, with his flush pink skin, coarse blonde hair, and blue eyes, had been taken from a compliant world as a healthy child, and he was the one who looked strange.

_No, a funeral would only upset the populace._

"Yes, Great Captain?" he asked, snapping to attention instantly. "What do you need of me?"

_How is Horus taking it?_

"Do you believe in the Imperial Truth?" Belphegor asked, and though he sounded outwardly calm, his auras were in flux, tattered and wavering with grief. Raum ignored them both and stared straight ahead, into the dimly-lit morgue, expressionless.

_Badly._

"Yes, Great Captain," Dorth said, obediently. It was the only correct answer, and it was the truth besides. 

"So, then--" Belphegor touched the claws of his gauntlets together, the light clink barely audible over the thrumming of the _Resilient’s_ engines. He began again. "So then, you would want to know the truth of a matter, even if you found it be... personally unpleasant?"

"Great Captain, I--"

"Answer the question," said Belphegor, firmly.

_Sanguinius is with him. Perhaps he can help._

"Yes, Great Captain. Of course I do." Dorth searched his superior's face, but the older Astartes was inscrutable. "Isn't... that what the Emperor would want from us?"

Raum spat out an ugly laugh, and it made Dorth's stomach turn. He glanced at the other officer, and almost jumped when Belphegor's gauntlets came down on his shoulders. 

"I think that's a very bold way of choosing to see things, Dorth." Belphegor's expression was hard, but somewhere, Dorth found affection in it. "You're not from Barbarus, like Raum and I are, or like many of the other senior officers are, but I think we can trust you to help us. Bring you in a little closer. Am I right?"

"Great Captain, I don't know if I understand what you’re asking of me--"

"Leave him," Raum said, glancing back at them. His skin was darker than Belphegor's, and his black hair was cut short, laying almost haphazardly against his skull. His features were of a different shape than his superior's, because as Dorth understood it, Raum was of the southwestern continent of Barbarus rather than the northern one, though his eyes were the same.

Belphegor ignored Raum, watching Dorth patiently, waiting on an answer.

“Will it help--” The words caught in Dorth’s throat. The syllables of the name giving him pause. There was no Legion II, he reminded himself. There had never been a Legion II. “Will it help the... Primarch?”

“The Primarch is dead,” Belphegor said, patiently, “and nothing helps the dead, but if you think justice will help the living, then yes. This will help.”

"Then, whatever it is..." Dorth tilted his chin up, meeting Belphegor's gaze. "Yes. You can trust me, Great Captain."

*** *** ***

Four dead Astartes lay naked on the morgue examination tables. 

_There’s been an accident._

Dorth knew each of them personally. Caim, Orias, and Balam, from Barbarus. The three men were, all of them, pale and drawn and grey. Mirrors of Belphegor, and to a lesser extent, Raum. Helios Ashton, of Terra, had been made an Astartes before Mortarion had returned to lead his Legion. He was older than all of them, and even in death, his dark skin and gold tattoos stood out in stark contrast to the other three. 

Like Dorth, Raum, and Belphegor they had been part of the Primarch's special Detail.

Not Mortarion's Detail, but Primarch II's, who was--

Dorth cut himself off.

Seven in total. It was a holy number, Raum had once said, before Orias had stuck him and snapped at him to be silent for once in his life.

_Can you open the door, little man? Where’s your big sister?_

They had been bodyguards for a Primarch with no Astartes of their own, a temporary measure, until the mystery of Legion II's deteriorating geneseed could be unraveled. Dorth supposed that was over now. By decree of the Emperor, there was no more Legion II, and again he reminded himself, by that same decree, there had never been a Legion II. 

It was unheard of for a Primarch to have bodyguards from outside their own Legion, but the situation with Legion II was equally unheard of. The geneplague that had decimated them had nearly taken out Legion III as well, and by the time the Emperor’s personal physicians and psychics had gotten it under control, Legion II was gone. 

_It’s called an IED. It’s a technical term for an improvised bomb._

Sal--

The Primarch had been resistant to the idea of creating more. Defiant, even in the face of the Emperor’s will. Something else that was unheard of. No more Astartes, not until they could be sure this wouldn’t happen again. Some of them had barely been teenagers, and Dorth had once seen the Primarch weeping and lamenting over them. The sentiment was something he barely understood. He doubted that Mortarion, who was distant and incredible, like a figure from myth, knew the names of any Death Guard outside of his personal officer cadre.

_This sort of thing is impossible to anticipate._

The bodyguard detail had been Horus’ idea, but his own Astartes were too wild. Fulgrim’s too few in number, Guilliman’s too busy, Ferrus’ not of the right mindset. The task fell finally, to Mortarion, who had a massive Legion with Astartes to spare, and in turn, to Belphegor and Helios, who were proven, wise, and well-liked.

The five men who filled out the detail were decorated veterans, Raum most of all. The other Astartes selected to serve as Primarch II’s bodyguards each had an impressive record of honours, with no small number of victories to their credit. Dorth’s own battle-record was not to be dismissed out of hand, but with less than half a century of service behind him, he couldn’t exactly complete with the Legion’s greatest veterans.

...but then again, the Primarch II had asked for Dorth specifically.

The thought made him feel hollowed out, empty from grief.

_...because he didn’t die in combat, you and your brother aren’t entitled to his pension._

Dorth, as he had a thousand times in the last two days, looked back on every action he had taken since Belphegor had approached him about the Detail and found fault in it. Perhaps, if only it had not been him, a young Astartes with less than a century of service behind him--

If it had not been _him_ , something could have been done. Another veteran, or one of the Battle-Captains would have thought of something to escape the sunsquall. Something more ingenious and daring than what he would have come up with, which was, no matter how many times Dorth turned the scenario over in his head, nothing. 

Belphegor, Raum, and Dorth had been spared only by sheer luck. Mortarion had called Belphegor back to the Endurance to deal with some Legion matter and the Great Captain had brought Raum and Dorth with him, estimating that the Primarch they guarded would be safe enough on Terra. After all, four bodyguards had remained behind when none should have been necessary. Raum was Belphegor’s second, Dorth was being groomed for an officer's position (though he had been ordered to stand outside the door for the duration of Belphegor’s meeting with the Primarch), and that favouritism had saved his life. He wasn't sure if he should feel guilty about it.

_Dorth, a foreign fleet has come to the Capital City. They’re Kajarri, just like we are, but they’ve traveled here from the Old Earth to reunite with us. Isn’t that exciting?_

"Is seven a lucky number?" Dorth asked, the words falling out of his mouth without prompting. Belphegor glanced at him coldly. 

"It's the number of death," the Great Captain said, at last. "It's not lucky. It’s _holy_."

 _Holy_ was a word that Dorth didn’t like, but he kept that to himself.

_One of them shot the president this morning. Put your books away, Dorth, there’s no school today._

Raum manipulated the panel on the inside of the door and the iris clanged shut with a screech of metal, sealing the three living Astartes inside the morgue. "...and since death always wins in the end, yeah kid, it's pretty lucky too."

Belphegor's gaze went from Dorth to Raum, unimpressed with his candor. "Take off your cloak," he ordered. "Cover Helios."

Raum stripped off his seals, discarding the oaths unceremoniously, the parchment tearing away, red wax crumbling to the floor. To Dorth, it was disrespectful to the point that it almost seemed blasphemous, but blasphemy was something they had left behind in the wake of the Imperial Truth, as though it were a buoy pushed aside in the passage of a great ship. The pins and clasps came next, and Raum pulled the cape of steelsilk and woven adamantium links from his shoulders, shaking it out and laying it over Helios' body.

_Dorth, because you're the right age, there are some people in the city who will give us a month’s worth of meal tickets for a drop of your blood._

"You know," said Raum, idly pretending to inspect the grooves of his gauntlets, "you told Mortarion there weren't any left."

"Absurd," said Belphegor. "Calas told him that. I said nothing."

"Which one?" Raum asked, gesturing to the three uncovered corpses.

Belphegor looked between the fallen Astartes, as though drawing imaginary lots. Finally, he raised one hand and pointed at Caim. Raum went to the dead man, turning him on his side, tilting his chin up to open his airway, using the fingers of his gauntlet to pry open Caim’s mouth.

_You don't have to do it, if you don't want to._

"What... what are you doing?" Dorth asked. "What is that for? What are there more _left _of?"__

__

__

"No more questions, Dorth." Belphegor raised one hand, to silence him, and Dorth held his tongue, disquieted.

“It’s going to hurt,” Raum said, rolling his shoulders as he walked over to Belphegor. “Worse out than in.”

_They say the chance is one-in-a-million, nothing will come of it._

“I’m aware,” Belphegor said, and Dorth felt anxiety seize him, threatening to tip over into fear. Astartes did feel it, despite the popular axiom, they merely couldn’t ruled by it. He’d been ordered to stay silent, however, and he did.

What happened next was difficult to process. Raum reached out and held the Great Captain by the front of his armor and with the claws of his other gauntlet, drew a sigil into the ceramite plates. For a moment, nothing happened, and then Belphegor was sick.

To Dorth, it was alien. It had no context. It made no sense. 

Even with less than half a century of service behind him, Dorth had seen Astartes die before, both quickly and slowly. Reuniting the lost colonies and far-flung outposts of humanity was a herculean task, and even though he was a comparatively young man, Dorth had seen far more than his share of war.

...though he had never seen an Astartes become sick.

Belphegor bent double, gripping the edge of one of the slabs in his gauntlet, the metal denting under his touch. Had the table not been meant to bear the weight of an Astartes, he would have surely torn it from the moorings in the thrall of the spasms that rocked him. Dorth took a step forward and Raum shook his head.

“Is he dying?” Dorth asked, gazing at Raum, wondering what the other officer had done. It seemed impossible that whatever he had scratched into Belphegor’s armor could have caused this. His thoughts churned, trying to rationalize it. Had it been poison? A hidden blade?

“No,” said Raum, as though to silence all of Dorth’s childish concerns. In the same moment, Belphegor vomited something up.

The thing came out of his body, twisting and thrashing as if it were alive, but when it hit the ground there was the sharp ring of metal on metal. The shape of it was hard to discern at first, covered as it was in bile and blood, but as Dorth watched, it righted itself, shaking its body like a dog. It had the look of a blowfly, but with burrowing mandibles and a long stinger, the plates of its exoskeleton made of thinly worked brass. Delicate, gossamer wings fluttered up from its back, the number on each side of its body uneven, and Dorth counted seven - the supposed holy number. It shrieked in annoyance, turning between Belphegor and Raum as it scraped fluids from them with its back legs. 

Uncoiled, it was about half the length of Belphegor’s forearm, and though he was an Astartes, it seemed impossible that the creature had come from inside of him without killing the Great Captain. Impossible that it could be made of brass and tin be somehow alive. 

“What--” Dorth took a step back, feeling his stomach turn. “What _is_ that?”

“It’s a sslora,” Raum said, kneeling down, letting the thing climb onto his gauntlet. It trilled loudly in acknowledgement, but the sound was more of a screech, really.

“It’s a xenos?” Dorth reached for his chainsword, laid his hand on hilt, hooked his fingers into the trigger. He looked to Belphegor, who was trying to stand, wiping dripping blood and black fluids from his mouth. “It was living inside the Captain?! Raum! What’s happening?”

“It’s not a xenos,” said Raum. With one finger, he petted it, as though it were a treasured pet. “A sslora is a friend. They’re a type of... insect that lives the Warp, but they can survive outside of it, if they have a little bit of skin to hide inside. Cute, isn’t he?”

“I’m leaving--”

“Not alive you aren’t,” said Raum instantly, his gaze dangerous.

Dorth shifted his weight. He was closest one to the door, Raum a handful of paces away. Belphegor was beside his second, still incapacitated. Dorth’s chances in a fight with either of the elder Astartes were poor, but Raum was holding the sslora, and he needed both hands to draw the power sword magnetised on his back.

...he could run, but he wondered if fleeing was a better option then fighting. 

It would be his word against the word of two senior officers, and if Belphegor and Raum had been telling the truth, Great Captain Calas knew about the sslora too. He had lied about them, even though the Primarch had wanted them all destroyed. It seemed an impossible thing, the elder officers consorting with Warp creatures. So instead, Dorth stood there, one hand still on the hilt of chainsword, paralyzed.

In the time it had taken Dorth to process, Belphegor had recovered, and he stood. He gestured with one hand, and Raum handed over the sslora.

“Dorth,” said Belphegor, his voice rasping, but stern. “You said I could trust you.”

“As you openly consort with… with a creature from the Warp?!”

“Ah,” Belphegor said, stroking the sslora with his clawed gauntlet, “but that’s the catch, there _are_ no creatures living in the Warp, are there? No gods. No demons or spirits.”

“Are you calling the Emperor a liar?” Dorth felt his heart twist, he tried to understand. 

“Yes,” said the Great Captain plainly. “Like he’s lying about the sunsquall, and about murdering his child, and about murdering our brothers.”

“But the apothecaries said--”

“They can lie about anything they please.” The sslora climbed up Belphegor’s arm, buzzing, and rubbed its face against his neck, as though it were a kitten. “Men with power always do.”

“Great Captain, if it’s as you say, and you already know the truth,” Dorth said, searching for a way to voice his protests, “then you don’t _need_ the sslora for anything. Kill it, crush it in your gauntlet. The Primarch wanted them gone, that should be reason enough.”

Belphegor and Raum exchanged a wry look. 

“That’s exactly why I like you,” Belphegor said. “You have a sharp mind, Dorth. A clear heart.”

“If you believe that,” he said, “then listen to me, please. No good can come of this.”

“Doing good,” said Belphegor, “is not my intention here.”

The Great Captain lifted the sslora and set it down on on morgue slab, next to Caim’s corpse. Eagerly, it crawled over the dead Astartes, and wedged itself, obscenely, into his open mouth. Dorth was disgusted, horrified at the violation, but Belphegor and Raum barely paid it any mind. They could have been watching a report about the weather, or casually viewing a documentary holovid. This wasn’t the first time that they’d done something like this, Dorth realized. 

There was a tearing sound, like the ripping of cartilage, and though Dorth had taken hundreds of lives with the chainsword he held in his grip, the noise of it was loathsome in his ears. Caim’s body jerked once, and then lay still once more. 

_Think_ , Dorth ordered himself. _Figure this out. Buy yourself some time._

Raum watched him carefully, and the hilt of the power sword visible over the other Astartes’ shoulder was threat enough. The blade was nearly as long as his body, and Raum called his sword _Ghost Liberator_ , after what it did. It was hardly lyrical, but as always with the Death Guard, function over form. Belphegor’s lieutenant wasn’t in a battle stance, but it was bad enough that Raum had both hands free. 

“What is it doing?” Dorth asked, turning his gaze to Belphegor. 

“Looking for poisons,” Belphegor said. “Disease. Viruses. Geneplauges. To eat. It's what they were made to do, protect the bodies of their hosts by skimming out toxins.”

“The apothecaries said they died in the sunsquall.” Dorth repeated himself and chanced a glance at Caim’s body, though the fallen Astartes lay still and quiet. A few drops of blood oozed from the corner of his mouth, but there was no indication, physical or otherwise, that there was a Warp creature swimming around inside him. He wondered how many more there were, why the First Captain had lied to their Primarch.

“Then there’s no need to worry, Dorth.” Belphegor folded his hands together. “If that’s true, the sslora won’t find anything and we three can be on our way, and just like Legion II, this will never have happened.”

“But--” Dorth considered, stopped and began again. “Great Captain, what’s to stop the sslora from lying to us? How you can trust the word of… of an _animal_ over the word of the Emperor and his servants? Can it even speak?”

“Not in words,” Belphegor said, “but it can talk to us in its own way. The denizens of the Warp never lie.”

Raum snorted.

Belphegor held up one hand. “Let me correct myself--”

“I think you had better,” Raum said, and Dorth was shocked at the familiarity between them.

Silence fell over the morgue as Belphegor mulled over his explanation. The threat of being murdered had seemingly passed, so Dorth released the hilt of his chainsword. 

“You obviously dislike lying,” Belphegor said, at last.

“Yes, Great Captain.” Dorth nodded. “I do. Which is why--”

“But if you were in a situation where telling a lie would save someone’s life, say a child’s life, or the life another Astartes, you would?”

“Yes, but that not--”

“Then you’ll probably be disappointed,” aid Belphegor, “to know that being a liar is the only thing that makes you different from the sslora.”

“I think a great many things make me different from the sslora, Captain.” Dorth hadn’t meant to speak as coldly as he had, but Belphegor was a man he respected, even loved.

Belphegor went to the slab and ran the claws of his gauntlet over Caim’s chest, the caress gentle, as though he was feeling for the thing. “If the Emperor offered my sslora all the gold on Terra to stop eating the poison inside our brother’s body, the offer would fall on deaf ears.”

“Because it’s an animal,” said Dorth.

“Because creatures of the Warp are slaves to their nature. They don’t moralize, Dorth. They don’t debate or philosophize. They just do what they were made to do. They’re dangerous, yes, but in the same way a bolter or a chamber full of poison gas is dangerous. Useful to us, if we respect their power and know the rules.” Belphegor tapped Caim’s sternum. “Sslora eat toxins, they have no political agendas.”

“How do you know about them at all, Great Captain?” Dorth struggled to make sense of the explanation, he was an outsider here and he knew it. Younger than any of the other Astartes he had spent the last decade with. Kajarri, where they were Barbaran and Terran. Not cultivated from ancient nobility or dredged up from the killing mists of a Death World and reforged, but a regular human child, born to human parents, through their faces had grown hazy in his memories.

“My father taught me,” said Belphegor. “He was a great necromancer, and a high priest of the God of Death before Mortarion murdered him and kidnapped me.”

“That’s absurd--”

“...and yet the evidence is right here before you.”

“There aren’t any gods,” Dorth said, defiant. “Perhaps there are Warp-insects, I can accept that, because there are insects _everywhere_ and because I’ve seen the sslora with my own eyes. That they’ve infested the Warp as well as the material plane is hardly a surprise. It proves nothing, Great Captain.”

“You’re right about one thing in that whole damned mess,” said Raum.

“Which ‘thing’ would that be?” Dorth asked.

“That there aren’t any gods,” Raum answered. “The plural is where you’re messing things up. There’s just one. Singular. The God of Death. On Barbarus, we called him Nerga--”

“I’m above striking you,” said Belphegor, “but be silent, Raum.”

Raum closed his mouth and crossed his arms, leaning back against the slab that supported Helios. Belphegor looked back to Dorth.

“I can’t accept this,” said Dorth, with more surety this time. “Do whatever you’re going to do. Punish me. Censure and demote me. Kill me if you have to. I won’t participate in this, Great Captain.”

“Do you know why you’re alive right now?” Belphegor asked, his moss-green eyes bright. “Why you’re standing in front of me and not laying dead on the fifth slab?”

Silence was his only defense, so Dorth tilted his chin up and glared at the Great Captain. 

“A better question,” said Belphegor, walking around Caim’s slab, his clawed gauntlets dragging on the surface. The metal-on-metal sound made the hair on the back of Dorth’s neck stand up. He had seen Belphegor tear men limb-from-limb with those claws, and they weren’t even weaponized, not truly. “Do you imagine that Astartes with less than five decades of service are often taken along to meetings with Primarchs? I'll Illuminate you, Dorth, they aren't.”

Dorth had no answer to it, and he felt himself grinding his teeth.

“That morning, Selene--”

Dorth flinched. “The Emperor says we aren’t allowed to speak her name--”

“ _Fuck the Emperor_ ,” Belphegor spat the words out like a curse, and Raum grinned obscenely, as though he were watching personal drama spiral downwards towards a fistfight. “Selene told me to take you with me. That morning, she’d rejected the Emperor’s latest demand to have a geneseed extraction done, and she was afraid. For herself, for you. She was never going to produce viable geneseed, but she thought of you as the next closest thing to that, as the child she couldn’t have. Selene wanted me to take care of you, and I have every intention of holding true. By showing you the truth that lays beyond the veil, by ripping this bandage off cleanly.”

“You think this is ‘cleanly’?” Dorth asked, even as he realized that what Belphegor was saying was true. He wasn’t sure if he liked the thought that Selene had intervened to protect him from the Emperor better than the thought that he’d been shown undue favoritism.

“Oh,” Belphegor said, and Raum laughed. “You have _no idea_ how much worse it gets.”

He had come back around to Caim’s front, and with the tip of one gauntlet, he scratched a mark into the dead Astartes’ flesh. Caim’s body jerked on the slab, and Raum moved forward to hold it, so it didn’t fall. Dorth heard ripping noises from within, but he supposed a dead man had no gag reflex to help the sslora along. 

This time, it took longer, but the creature emerged, again dripping blood and bile. Before it could raise its back legs and clean itself off, Raum seized it in his gauntlet and pinned it down against the slab. The sslora trilled in alarm, thrashing helplessly beneath the metal glove. Belphegor came over, gripped the brass insect by its thorax and squeezed. 

At first, Dorth thought they were going to kill it, and the sslora’s trilling shot upwards into a crescendo, echoing through the camped morgue until it was almost painful to hear. Instead, Belphegor bore down on the Warp creature until a drop of shimmering, jade-green liquid beaded up at the tip of its stinger. Using his free hand, he caught it as it fell and rolled it in his gauntlet. 

With an expertise borne of long practice, Belphegor turned the drop of liquid back and forth in his palm, turning it over itself again and again. 

“You’re clean?” Raum asked, releasing the sslora. The beast righted itself and shrieked in defiance, turning between both of them, angry and insulted. Raum stroked it with the back of one finger, trying to calm it.

“Clean enough,” Belphegor answered, again. “This was all extracted from Caim.”

“What is it?” Dorth asked, despite himself. 

“It’s poison,” Belphegor said. Striding forward, he took Dorth’s wrist and turned his hand, letting the drop of liquid fall into it. It landed with a light ‘plink’, transmuted into glass through some unknown sorcery. “From Caim’s body. They were dead before the sunsquall hit them.”

“There’s poison that can kill an Astartes?”

“There is,” Belphegor said. “Of more than one sort, you would be surprised.”

“Then we need to tell Mortarion about this, Great Captain.” Dorth closed his gauntlet over the bead, catching it between the seams, to keep it from rolling away. It was still difficult to accept that the Emperor could have ordered such a killing, but the poison combined with the sunsquall seemed a coincidence beyond belief. “...and Warmaster Horus. Lord Guilliman. Everyone.”

“Not yet,” said Belphegor. “That time is coming, but not yet.”

“Then what was even the point of all this--”

“I already told you that,” Belphegor said, just the slightest bit frustrated. “Selene told me to take care of you, and I am. You pride yourself on figuring things out on your own, so it seems facetious to point out that you can’t trust the Emperor.”

“I could show this to the Primarch,” Dorth threatened.

“I doubt he would see you, Dorth.” Belphegor gestured to Raum and the other Astartes released the sslora. It leapt at Belphegor, shrieking in fury, pacing over his armor, scratching and flailing as it stalked about and came to rest on one of the pauldrons, chittering as though it were put out by Belphegor's bad manners. “Mortarion isn't like Horus or Guilliman. He doesn't even know your name.”

“But, I--”

“Just know the truth and wait, Dorth. Our time is coming, but not yet.” Belphegor gripped him by the shoulders, his expression was concerned, even fatherly. It made it easier to ignore what had just transpired. “Until then, I meant what I said. I want to bring you in a little closer, as part of the officer cadre. I can trust you, can’t I?”

Dorth considered it. “Yes,” he said. “You can, Great Captain.”


End file.
